FULL CASTING ANNOUNCED FOR THE WORLD PREMIÈRE OF
TIM WALKER’S NEW PLAY BLOODY DIFFICULT WOMEN
AT RIVERSIDE STUDIOS
Wind of Change, in association with Cahoots Theatre Company, today announce the full cast for the world première of Tim Walker’s Bloody Difficult Women, charting the events behind the court case Gina Miller brought against Theresa May in 2016 and what has ensued. Stephen Unwin directs Calum Finlay (Max Guilden), Amara Karan (Gina Miller), Edmund Kingsley (Alan Miller), Graham Seed (Sir Hugh Rosen), Jessica Turner (Theresa May) and Andrew Woodall (Paul Dacre). The production opens at Riverside Studios on 1 March at 7.30pm, with previews from 24 February, and runs until 26 March.
Wind of Change
in association with Cahoots Theatre Company
presents
The world première of
BLOODY DIFFICULT WOMEN
By Tim Walker
Director: Stephen Unwin; Designer: Nicky Shaw; Lighting Designer: David Howe
Sound Designer: John Leonard
24 February – 26 March
“If standing up for what you believe to be right is being ‘bloody difficult’, then so be it”
Theresa May
Tim Walker’s brand-new drama sees the tumultuous political events of recent years played out in a power struggle between two determined women.
His intensely human account of the court case Mrs Miller brought against Mrs May makes for revealing and often very funny theatre, but ultimately it’s a tragedy, where there are no winners, only losers.
Walker brings the story bang up to date in a dramatic finale which says so much about the deep divisions we still have in our country.
Calum Finlay plays Max Guilden. His theatre work includes Switzerland (Theatre Royal Bath and Ambassadors Theatre), Mary Stuart, Hamlet (Almeida Theatre and West End), The Ghost Train, Too Clever by Half (Told by an Idiot, Royal Exchange Theatre), Dunsinane (RSC, NT Scotland and international tour), The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Mouse and His Child, Macbeth, Jubilee (RSC) and The Prince of Denmark (National Theatre). For television, his work includes, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and for film, Bates of the Amazon.
Amara Karan plays Gina Miller. Her theatre work includes Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC). For television, her work includes Hope Street – as series regular Leila Hussain, The Twilight Zone, The Beard, Bancroft, The Night Of – as series regular Chandra Kapoor, Lucky Man – as series regular Suri, The Ambassadors, Kidnap and Ransom, Doctor Who, and The Good Housekeeping Guide; and for film, The Death of Life of John F. Donovan, Those Four Walls, The Upside, A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Jadoo, Jayden, All in Good Time, Rafta Rafta, The Task, St Trinian’s, and The Darjeeling Limited.
Edmund Kingsley plays Alan Miller. His that work includes Beauty and Beast (Oxford Playhouse), Secret Theatre, Richard III, King John (Shakespeare’s Globe), Seven Acts of Mercy, Hecuba (RSC), The Keepers of Infinite (Park Theatre), Dangerous Corner, The Importance of Being Earnest (Salisbury Playhouse), The Rive Line (Jermyn Street Theatre), She Stoops to Conquer (Nottingham Playhouse), Moscow Live (HighTide), The Duchess of Malfi, Volpone (Greenwich Theatre), and Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Rep). For television, his work includes Embankment, Devils, Anatomy of a Scandal, Jekyll and Hyde, Life in Squares, Breathless, The Borgias, Sensitive Skin, and As If; and for film, Benediction, Madness in the Method, Heavenbound, Interlude in Prague, Capsule, Artificial Horizon, Stoneheart Asylum, Allies, Hugo and The Reverend.
Graham Seed plays Sir Hugh Rosen. His theatre work includes The Mousetrap (UK and Indian tour), The Ladykillers (New Wolsey Theatre, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and Salisbury Playhouse co-production), Flare Path, Basketcase, Journey’s End (UK tours), An Audience with Jimmy Savile (Park Theatre and Edinburgh Festival), Dead Sheep (Park Theatre and UK tour), Bedroom Farce, Separate Tables (Salisbury Playhouse), Yes, Prime Minister (Chichester Festival Theatre and UK tour), Accolade, Too Good to Be True (Finborough Theatre), The Skin Game (Orange Tree Theatre), Present Laughter (Theatr Clwyd), and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (Almeida Theatre and UK tour). For television, his work includes, Casualty, Doctors, The Durrells, He Kills Coppers, The Chatterley Affair, Station Jim, Band of Brothers, Nature Boy, Dinnerladies, Ashenden, Jeeves and Wooster, Victoria Wood as Seen on TV, Cab, Who’s Who, Brideshead Revisited and I Claudius; and for film, Peterloo, Bonded by Blood II, Tezz, Wild Target, Morning Jericho, These Foolish Things, AKA, Honest and Gandhi. Seed played series regular Nigel Pargetter over 27 years for BBC Radio 4’s The Archers.
Jessica Turner plays Theresa May. Her theatre work includes A Song at Twilight, Present Laughter (Theatre Royal Bath and UK tour), The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich (RSC), All My Sons (Rose Theatre Kingston and The Watermill Theatre), The Second Mrs Tanqueray (Rose Theatre Kingston), Lettice and Lovage (The Watermill Theatre), Persuasion (Salisbury Playhouse), Wallenstein (Chichester Festival Theatre), Waste (Almeida Theatre), Girl in the Goldfish Bowl (Sheffield Theatres), Mary Stuart, Oedipus (Nuffield Southampton), Cuckoos (Barbican and Bath Theatre Royal), King Lear (The Old Vic and UK tour), Albert Speer, The White Chameleon, The Beaux Stratagem (National Theatre) and Good (Donmar Warehouse). For television, her work includes, Father Brown, Law and Order UK, New Tricks, Heartbeat, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, 10 Days to War, Waking the Dead, The Line of Beauty, Spooks, The Cazalets, The Ambassador, The Mill on the Floss and All or Nothing at All; and for film, The Ottoman Lieutenant, The Murder of Princess Diana and Deeply.
Andrew Woodall plays Paul Dacre. His theatre work includes Admissions (Trafalgar Studios), Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Wendy and Peter Pan (RSC), First Light (Chichester Festival Theatre), The Wars of the Roses (Rose Theatre Kingston), Great Britain (National Theatre/Theatre Royal Haymarket), The Browning Version/South Downs (Harold Pinter Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre), Benefactors (Sheffield Theatres), The Knowledge/Little Platoons (Bush Theatre), Women Beware Women (National Theatre), Hedda Gabler (Gate Theatre Dublin), Much Ado About Nothing, The Voysey Inheritance, The Life of Galileo (National Theatre), Gaslight (The Old Vic), As You Like It (Wyndham’s Theatre), As You Desire Me (Playhouse Theatre) and The Sugar Syndrome (Royal Court Theatre). For television, his work includes, The Reckoning, Lockwood and Co., Des, Granchester, Lucan, New Worlds, An Adventure in Time and Space, Miranda, Silk, New Tricks, The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Above Suspicion, Men are Wonderful, Personal Affairs, Place of Execution, Lawless, Hear the Silence and Charles II; and for film, Where is Anne Frank, Solo: A Star Wars Story, 303 Squadron, The Riot Club, Belle, Johnny English Reborn, Hypnotic, The Count of Monto Cristo and Regeneration.
Tim Walker is an author, broadcaster and British Press Award-winning journalist. He had a unique insight into the cases Gina Miller brought against the governments of Theresa May and Boris Johnson as he advised her on media strategy on both occasions. He has worked in staff positions on The Observer, the Daily Mail and The Sunday Telegraph, where he was the theatre critic. More recently, he has written columns for the Daily Mirror and The New European. He stood briefly as the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Canterbury in the last election. Star Turns, his latest book, was published in September.
Stephen Unwin directs. Unwin founded the English Touring Theatre in 1993. For the company, he directed more than 30 productions of classical and new plays, including award-winning productions of Hamlet with Alan Cumming, Hedda Gabler, Henry IV Parts One and Two with Timothy and Samuel West, King Lear with Timothy West, The Seagull with Cheryl Campbell and Ghosts with Diana Quick and Daniel Evans. These transferred to the Donmar and the Old Vic. He produced two plays by Jonathan Harvey and Peter Gill’s award-winning The York Realist as well as Sir Peter Hall’s production of Uncle Vanya. In 2008, he became Artistic Director of the new Rose Theatre in Kingston, which he ran until January 2014. His productions there included Hay Fever with Celia Imrie, The Importance of Being Earnest with Jane Asher, The Lady from the Sea with Joely Richardson, The Vortex with Kerry Fox and Day in the Death of Joe Egg with Ralf Little. He hosted the very successful Time to Talk series with 50 leading actors and personalities. Also an author, he has written 10 books on theatre, drama and related subjects, as well as numerous articles for newspapers and journals. He is also is active in campaigning for the rights of the disabled. He is Chairman of KIDS, a national charity which provides a wide range of services for disabled children, young people and their families.
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